NatWest has revealed the five fintechs that have been selected to take part in its inaugural Fintech Growth Programme.
AperiData, mmob, Sprive, Tunic Pay and Ask Silver, which are all pre-Series A UK-based startups looking to develop their business ideas, have been chosen to join the new programme for their “innovative solutions addressing challenges in the payments space”.
Through the Fintech Growth Programme, the fintech startups will work with NatWest’s ‘Innovation’ team and senior decision makers across the bank to help them scale-up sustainably.
The fintechs will benefit from a curated scale-up curriculum being offered through the programme, as well as the opportunity to connect, learn and build networks with fellow fintechs, coaches and NatWest’s dedicated ‘Innovation’ function.
L-R: David Grunwald, director of NatWest Innovation; Nicky Goulimis, co-founder of Tunic Pay; Jinesh Vohra, co-founder and CEO of Sprive; Irfan Khan, mmob’s founder and CEO; Stephen Ashworth, CEO of AperiData; Alex Somervell, co-founder and CEO of Ask Silver; and Lee McNabb, head of payments strategy & partnerships at NatWest
David Grunwald, director of NatWest Innovation, said: “We’re pleased to welcome these five fintechs onto the NatWest Fintech Growth Programme. Their solutions and remarkable potential align with our commitment to create better outcomes for our customers.
“Collaborating closely with such talented UK entrepreneurs not only enhances our ability to be future-focused, but reinforces our dedication to fostering the growth of the innovation community.”
“Payments is a network business and the days where big banks do everything themselves are over,” said Lee McNabb, head of payments strategy and partnerships at NatWest.
“To succeed in meeting customer needs and keeping them secure in their payment experiences we must embrace collaboration, partnership and learning through others. This is why I’m a huge supporter of the Fintech Growth programme.”
McNabb added: “Working together with a talented and thought-provoking group of entrepreneurs can only bring good things for the market and our customers.”
The five fintechs will now take part in 10 weeks of workshops, mentoring and coaching with NatWest.
Mmob’s embedded finance “toolkit” enables businesses to import or export API services in any channel. Last year, Satago and mmob joined forces on an embedded finance offering.
Irfan Khan, founder and chief executive officer of mmob, said: “As a founder, I am looking forward to learning from the expertise of the NatWest team – especially in understanding how technology can be applied at scale to solve their customers’ problems – as well as learning from my fellow participants as we tackle challenges together.”
Challenger credit bureau AperiData aims to improve financial inclusion in the UK by using Open Banking data insights to improve the credit scoring and lending processes.
AperiData unveiled its real-time Open Banking credit score ‘AperiScore’ at Open Banking Expo UK & Europe, in London last October.
Stephen Ashworth, chief executive officer of AperiData, added: “Having access to NatWest’s senior leadership and industry experts will be invaluable as we embark on our next phase of growth.”
Tunic Pay is building a governance layer for real-time payments with the intention to prevent authorised push payment fraud in the UK by providing payment “intelligence” to banks.
“We’re thrilled to deepen our collaboration with NatWest, a bank that has customer safety at its core, to transform the digital payment journey to better combat tomorrow’s fraud threats,” said Nicky Goulimis, Tunic Pay’s co-founder.
Ask Silver is a scam checking tool that sits in WhatsApp, and works by allowing anyone to send a screenshot of anything they aren’t sure about, such as an email or text message, and receive an analysis in seconds.
Money management fintech Sprive is helping homeowners to save thousands and pay off their mortgage faster, through “smart” overpayments, market monitoring and cashback from everyday shopping.
